http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R2VElkTTHo&feature=plcp
The INDOORS project produced this video 'Equal Rights' to advocate for sex workers’ rights.
The video is available for free download in 17 languages here.
This video was made with and for sex workers in order to make people aware that sex work is work and that sex workers should be entitled to the same rights as other workers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4GWmJZ08qQ&feature=em-share_video_user
Check out Empower's video pitch for Project Inspire: 5 Minutes to Change the World.
Sachumi and her friends are sex workers in Thailand and leaders in Empower Foundation. They want to have the skills and resources to create their own production company to make their own films by sex workers, about sex workers! Visit www.5MinutestoChangetheWorld.org to find out more about how you can join them to help empower women and girls.
Note: This report has been updated, following agreement with UNAIDS in January 2012 to revisions in the document.
This resource was officially launched in December 2011 as a separate report from the Advisory Group at the UNAIDS Secretariat in Geneva, during the 29th meeting of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board and has now been integrated into the UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work as annexes and published by UNAIDS.
The Programme for the Sex Worker Freedom Festival, Swabhumi, Kolkata, India is now available.
SWFF is the alternative International AIDS Conference 2012 event for sex workers and allies. To find out more about the event please visit our IAC Kolkata page here.
The programme can be downloaded below.
INVITATION: Stop the Arrests Campaign Launch this Monday
WHEN: 6.30PM, MONDAY 18th June
WHERE: Centre for Possible Studies,
21 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8HR (nearest tube: Marble Arch)
Campaign group, Stop the Arrests(1), will hold a public launch in central London this Monday to outline its call for a moratorium on sex worker arrests during the London 2012 Olympic Games. The panel includes Laura Agustín, trafficking expert and author of Sex at the Margins, Georgina Perry, manager of Open Doors, a sex worker health project operating in Hackney and a video link up with Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle de Jour and author of The Sex Myth. Stop the Arrests is concerned that the policing of sex work and sex establishments in the lead-up to the Olympics threatens to compromise the safety and autonomy of sex workers.
Call for papers: HIV and Sex Work
Research for Sex Work is seeking contributions for its next issue: HIV and Sex Work. This international journal provides a platform for the exchange of ideas, experiences and research results on the subject of sex work in a framework of health and human rights.
Empower have written an open letter to the Thai Prime Minister protesting against anti-trafficking raids and the appalling human rights abuses perpetrated against migrant sex workers by the state.
The background to this story can be read in much more detail in 'Hit & Run', Empower's recent research report. In particular the report contains a case study (Raid and Rescue 2 - Mae Sot, pages 79-85) in which 17 Burmese nationals were arrested as part of an 'anti-trafficking' raid in March 2011. The case study documents how the women were provided with poor interpreting, denied proper information about the reason for their detention and their rights, and how they have been held for over a year in a 'rescue' shelter as victims of trafficking and potential witnesses in a prosecution - despite their assertion that they were working in the entertainment venue voluntarily. The women were also subjected to mandatory and invasive medical examinations and tests and denied proper access to support and advice.
The full text of the Open Letter follows:
Following on from KayThi Win's speech at the AWID forum in April, Realitycheck.org have published this article . The author, Chi Mgbako, illustrates:
'Women’s rights advocates who view all people in prostitution as “slaves” and make no distinction between those trafficked into prostitution and consenting adult sex workers who are in the trade by choice or circumstance often advocate for anti-sex trafficking policies that harm adult sex workers.'
Chi ends the article with a clear plea that 'the women’s rights movement should not embrace policies that harm female, male, and transgender sex workers.'
Announcement from GNP+ (In English, French and Spanish)
Now Open: Online Discussions LIVING 2012: The Positive Leadership Summit
In the lead up to LIVING 2012: The Positive Leadership Summit, the 13th International Conference for people living with HIV, the Global Network of People living with HIV and the LIVING 2012 partnership started further e-consultations as of 23 May.